Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 Exclusive Developer Interview

Exclusive new screens and developer interview on co-op campaign.

1UP: How does co-op affect the economy? Can someone just snag all of the ore nodes to be a dick?

AA: Well, the resource system when you're in co-op is that you guys share everything. You have a pool of money, and if one player decides to built a whole bunch of s***, he's shooting his co-op buddy in the foot because he's draining money from his buddy's coffers as well. Cooperatively, it's not just thinking about how you're going to attack your enemy, but how you build up your forces as well. You can't just spend your money like crazy -- you have to think of it as having a joint bank account between husband and wife.

1UP: Oh, so no matter how many extractors you put down, all ore goes to--

AA: It all goes to one pool.

SCREENS: Click the image above to check out all Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 screens.

1UP: Continuing from that point, is there friendly fire? Or, rather, can I still be a dick to my partner by doing something stupid and goofy like building a bunch of walls around his base to prevent him from expanding?

AA: Yeah, you can do that. OK, co-op players get a shared build radius, so you, as my buddy, can build within my base even though you might be on the other side of the map, because we share build radii. So yeah, if you wanted to grief me like how you described, you could, but then we'd lose and I'd kick you and swap you for either another buddy or an AI when replaying that mission. I've already covered the money aspect, so on the topic of friendly fire: you never auto-acquire any of your buddy's forces, but if you wanted to force-fire on them for whatever reason, you can. And for player powers like Magnetic Satellite and the Orbital Dump, those have friendly fire on by default, and if you're not careful, you can inadvertently damage your buddy's units as well.

1UP: Quick side note: So, will there be co-op achievements for the Xbox 360 version?

AA: Yes, there are. But we're in the midst of finalizing the Achievements, and I don't want to commit to anything that ends up getting cut at the last second, but we're planning for co-op Achievements.

1UP: OK, last one: Can you just provide a more in-depth description to the kind of co-op shenanigans that you'd put players through in the campaign?

AA: OK, let me just describe the Leipzig mission more fully: It's the fifth -- out of nine -- Soviet mission. It takes place around the island of Mykonos, and the Allies have a pretty big base there. As the Soviets, player one has a base on the south edge of the island while player two has a base to the north. In the middle, on a small, separate island, there's a structure called a "tech inhibitor," which is a single-player-only structure (this building isn't available in skirmish or multiplayer), and it limits the kinds of things both players can build. So player one can only build things like the Twinblade helicopter and two varieties of naval ships; the second player can build a wide variety of naval ships and infantry, but no tanks or aircraft. So you basically have the entire Soviet tech tree unlocked, but it's split among both players. If you think about how most RTS games have a rock-paper-scissors mechanic, then it's like giving rock and scissors to one player, and the paper to another and having them go up against a common enemy.

This is an island-hopping map, so the islands are all themed in a certain way; one island would be all antiaircraft, and as player one, you can't take that out -- you have to rely on player two to sweep that island for you. But the second island might have a bunch of tier-3, heavy ground-to-ground base defenses, so as player two, you can't approach that island because the Allied Spectrum Towers will tear you up -- you'd need player one and his helicopters to go take them out. And the third island has a mix of both, so once both of you have "practiced" on the first two islands, you need to muster your forces and coordinate and attack the mix of antiair and ground while managing your forces carefully. And when you destroy that island -- which is where the tech inhibitor is located -- now both players can build whatever they please and coordinate to attack the final island. So it teaches players the specific use of individual units and what they're good and bad against, and when you're tackling that third island, it teaches both players how to use their units in concert with their buddy.